Lleyton Hewitt, interrupted, at Wimbledon

Sports writer for The Age

Lleyton Hewitt in action against Jerzy Janowicz of Poland during their men's singles match at Wimbledon. Play was suspended due to rain. Photo: AP

Lleyton Hewitt was clinging to the hope of reaching a 10th, perhaps last, Wimbledon third round, when play was suspended by drizzling rain on Thursday night.

The retractable roof was closed over centre court for the first time this week, allowing Roger Federer to resume, and then complete, his 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 defeat of qualifier Giles Muller. But Hewitt, another former champion, was out on the uncovered court two site of the dramatic earlier win by his Davis Cup teammate Nick Kyrgios when the interruption came.

The timing may have been helpful, actually, for Hewitt was trailing 15th seed Jerzy Janowicz 7-5, 4-4 after 80 minutes, having just saved multiple break points against the tall Pole who reached his first grand slam semi-final at the All England Club last year.

But for now Hewitt survives, as did all the top seeds in both draws, although No.2 Rafael Nadal was the shakiest, forced to eke out a challenging second round victory against his 2012 conqueror Lukas Rosol.

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Nadal, the reigning French Open champion, lost the first set 6-4 and was down 3-5 and 5-6 in the second set tiebreak, before cracking a forehand winner down the line. The set - and, effectively, the match - ended with a Rosol double fault, amid all sorts of questions being asked about whether second-round lightning could strike twice. In the end it didn’t, after Nadal closed out the match 6-4, 6-4.

“Is a very important victory for me,’’ said the Spaniard, who was upset in the first round in 2013. “To be in the third round here again after two, three years is very positive news and I think I finished the match playing at a very high level.

“The difference maybe is one point. Maybe if I lose that set point in the second set, if that forehand down the line went out, maybe will be here with a (loss). But that's the sport. That forehand was a perfect forehand for that moment. Is true that even if I was losing, I was fighting for every ball. I was fighting mentally, physically. Positive thing about tennis, I was able to find solutions through the whole match. At the same time my physical performance was different today than a few years ago.’’

No such problems for Federer, whose last major triumph of 17 came at Wimbledon in 2012, and nor for likely women’s quarter-final foes Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, who dropped just five games between them.

All three will return for the third round on Saturday, when Hewitt hopes to join them among the last 32 for the first time since 2010. But the 33-year-old Australian is up against it; there is some work to be done before then.